episode_0537

*** ***

The main gate of Soga Clothing Store, which had recovered from the damage suffered by the raiders, was wide open.

When the door that had been closed since my companions and I stayed at the Soga Clothing Store opened, people poured into the Soga Clothing Store as if they had been waiting for just now.

The ones who came in the most hastily were the young people, but they were followed by people of all ages and genders.

Although they said there was no distinction between men and women of all ages, in fact the proportion of men was overwhelmingly high.

That’s because the crowd that flocked to Soga Clothing Store today were all spectators who came to see So Yeon-hwa.

What should I hide?

The reason why the main gate of the Sogapomok branch was opened today was because they declared that they would meet all the young people who had made all kinds of trouble in their lifetime to meet the black cat.

So, young people from Aeyang who had feelings for the black cat flocked in, and even onlookers who wanted to see what all this fuss was about because of how beautiful Soyeonhwa was.

The soldiers and servants of the Soga Clothing Store came out to control the young people and bystanders.

“Now, anyone who wants to face Soyeonhwa and Sojeo, please line up here!”

“Stay back! Step back!”

Order was barely established among the young people and onlookers who had flocked to the Soga Clothing Shop family’s vicious actions, and soon a black cat appeared.

“Oh…!”

“God, you really have an amazing appearance!”

Onlookers burst into laughter at the sight of the black cat, who had completely taken off her usual hat and cotton yarn and was wearing gorgeous, luxurious clothes like the daughter of a dry goods store.

The black cat looked around at the onlookers, took a deep breath, smiled, and gave it a hug.

“My name is Son Mi-ok’s daughter, So Yeon-hwa. I was born and raised in Agyang when I was young, but due to personal reasons, I left here for a while and then came back.”

The audience applauded Black Cat’s greeting and cheered So Yeon-hwa. When I saw that scene, my heart sank for some reason.

It was a black cat that always wore black lips and cotton, covered its face, and took a step back to avoid being seen by people. Such a black cat was standing in the center of the crowd, receiving applause and cheers.

It was a truly heart-wrenching scene, so I wanted to grab someone and tell them how I felt.

Do you see “? The black cat is now standing among the crowd!”

Hyeok Kirin responded to my fuss with a grin.

“Yes, I can see it too. Seogong is also watching. Isn’t that right?”

Squeak!

Seogong, who was being held in Hyeok Kirin’s arms, let out a cry, not knowing whether he understood what he said or not.

After greeting the audience, Black Cat’s gaze turned to the young people lined up.

A stupid guy who looks at a black cat with complete fascination. An ugly guy with a red face, wondering what he was imagining. Even a scumbag with a mean smile.

These were the faces that made my heart cool as I looked at the black cat standing tall in the world.

When the black cat beckoned, one of the guards let the first young man in. The young man slowly approached the black cat with trembling steps and then spoke in an earnest tone.

“Do you remember me? I am Gwangpal.”

A young man who is extremely absorbed in the situation of a long-time intense reunion. He may not know it, but in his mind, it seemed as if all the adversity he had experienced so far had passed.

All the hardships I’ve endured so far were for the result of meeting So Yeon-hwa and being matched with her here today!

The young man was showing such emotions with his whole body, and the crowd was imbued with the young man’s emotions and looked at the black cat.

How will So Yeon-hwa react when she meets a young man after such a long time?

The black cat opened his mouth amidst the expectant gaze of the crowd.

“No. I have no idea.”

Short answer!

A short answer like a sword!

“How could I remember you just by hearing your name? Can you explain when, where, and how you met face to face?”

iced coffee. This is a fatal blow.

The young man opened his mouth desperately, looking as if his heart had been cut into two pieces.

“Ki, don’t you remember…? Me, who sat diagonally behind you at school? You didn’t ask me to run an errand for the special snacks sold at the school cafeteria!”

“….Did something like that happen?”

“There was! It was definitely there! You clearly asked me for a favor in a crisis situation where you were surrounded by students at the academy and couldn’t move!”

The relationship is so trivial!

As if I wasn’t the only one who thought that way, even the audience, who had briefly assimilated the young man’s earnest sensibility, also gave a cold look.

“I see. I don’t remember much because I wasn’t even ten years old when I went to school. So, why did you come to see me today?”

“Soyeonhwa! I have had you in my heart since childhood! Marry me! I will definitely make you happy!”

A young man kneeling and proposing marriage.

“Wow…”

Dokgo Iseol, who was watching this, was frightened and swept his arms. Dokgo Iseol, who starts the game even though it is not his business, and his companions who have similar facial expressions.

“I will refuse. I don’t like careless men who choose a spouse based solely on superficial connections from their childhood.”

Naturally, the black cat coldly rejected the young man’s confession.

“Ahh…! Ahhh!!”

A young man sits down on the spot and lets out a groan of sorrow. The black cat looked at the young man and struck the final blow.

“If you have finished your business, could you please step aside? There are a lot of people I need to meet.”

In the end, the heartbroken young man was dragged away by the men at the dry goods store, and the second young man approached the black cat, swallowing dry saliva.

“Do you remember me? I am Bumuk, the son of a bakery next to Cheongseong-daero. We used to talk for a while when my parents were making food.”

This time, however, a relationship appeared that seemed like it could be the beginning of a story. The black cat crossed his arms in thought for a moment, then nodded.

“I remember. I think you were quite chubby when you were young…”

“It’s because I naturally stopped eating snacks as I got older. Now I’m closer to making things than eating them.”

“I see. congratulation. You are taking over the family business in a stable manner.”

The young man seemed to have gained courage from Black Cat’s words and took out a lump of paper from his arms. Sure enough, what was piled up in that lump of paper was a cookie.

The young man, holding a flower-shaped cookie that looked more like a sugar craft than a cookie, held out the flower to the black cat while shaking his hand.

“I made it while thinking of you. Even if you don’t like it, I hope you can at least taste it.”

Too bad.

It seemed like a masterpiece that Mr. Bumuk worked hard to create all night long, but there was no way the black cat would accept that flower-shaped cookie at this moment…

“I will eat well.”

…should have been?

The black cat took the flower-shaped cookie with a curious face, looked at its appearance, then opened its mouth wide and put the cookie in its mouth.

Wow! Oh my gosh! Crack!

The black cat pursed its mouth as if thoroughly savoring a snack and ate up not only the flower buds, but also the leaves and stems.

Complete meal!

Looking at the black cat finishing the snack, a hint of hope appeared on the young man’s face, and the crowd was divided into those who thought, ‘No, isn’t it something that should be treasured?’ They were divided into tasting groups and were having small fights with each other.

Regardless of the crowd’s discussion, I knew the answer.

Black cats are inherently practical in nature. So, I just accepted the gift instead of rejecting it.

“It was a great sugar cookie. I thought the beads-like particles used to color the petals were just colored, but each one was a small colored snack. It seems like a lot of thought went into the sour, savory, and bitter flavors that spread every time you chew the grains.”

….Why did you refuse a gift that was just given to you, right? The black cat is actually a preservationist, so he ate it as a sign of rejection, right?

“In particular, I was quite impressed by the taste of real pollen when eating the stamens, and the bitter taste spreading when eating the leaves. If I were a child, these are the snacks I would hang on my mother’s skirt every day and beg her to buy me.”

“Well, then…! For you all my life…”

“But I’m not a child anymore.”

The black cat cut off his words and continued talking.

“Just as a child who used to eat snacks became a cookie maker, I also now prefer light snacks rather than sweet snacks that rot my teeth.”

Bumuk’s head bowed. He understood that the euphemistic meaning of Black Cat’s words was rejection.

“Thank you for enjoying it even though I have grown to like plain food.”

He left with only those broken words.

“Next.”

The name calling after two consecutive iron walls.

“I definitely received the potatoes you gave me back then!”

“It’s okay to say thank you. Get out.”

Next person again.

“If you meet me just once, I will give you this wealth…”

“By the way, have you ever encountered me in the past?”

“No, but I heard rumors about you…”

“No, other people said they saw your face at least once when they were young, but what are you? Get it out now!”

The onlookers were constantly agitated by the black cat’s continued resolute attitude. When a family with a pretty daughter invites young people, it is no different from recruiting public suitors.

And usually, when such an open courtship is held, the men who like the woman ask for her courtship, and the woman accepts the courtship, weighs various factors, and ultimately selects her or rejects her.

However, now that the black cat is cutting off every chance he meets the young man, it is bound to be a disconcerting development for the audience.

Of course, their thoughts were all mistaken.

The reason Black Cat summoned the young men today was to get rid of all those who were clinging to him.

In short, it was an execution ceremony.

*** ***

The black cat’s fierce sword dance instantly crushed the young men.

There were people who had their own connections, but they were only a very small number.

That’s because it was a black cat that spent most of its time at the Soga Clothing Shop except when it was very young, and most of the young people who flocked here only had a passing relationship with the black cat.

Those who had relationships as shallow as a piece of paper literally flew away like a piece of paper, and those who brought wealth or achieved success on their own listed their merits but were lightly rejected.

“If you don’t accept my love, I will jump into my boat and die!”

“Get out!”

Crash, a young man who committed suicide by climbing a tree, was unable to give up his habit and behaved obscenely in front of a black cat, and was beaten to death outside the main gate of Soga Pomok Branch.

After rolling several times on the floor, he fell flat on his back and sighed.

“Phew.”

Crash recalled the face of So Yeon-hwa, whom he had just met. A look so beautiful that it makes one’s skin tremble just by looking at it. It was an appearance that could only be described as a state of disrepair.

But why?

Even though I saw the elaborately decorated and fully grown Soyeonhwa up close, my mind was easily put in order.

The crash reminded me of the first time I saw So Yeon-hwa. They say there lives a girl with a beautiful appearance at Soga Clothing Store. The boy, who was full of energy but lacked entertainment and wanted to tell stories of his adventures to his friends, believed the rumor, hung on the wall of Soga Clothing Store, looked inside, and made eye contact with So Yeon-hwa.

Then his arms lost strength and he fell off the wall.

How long did it take for us to make eye contact like that? No matter how best to express it, it was a moment that could only be called a fleeting moment, but the special attraction I felt while looking at So Yeon-hwa during that short period of time remained clearly in my heart even to this day, when I became an adult.

The attraction was so strong that he threw away his livelihood and his reputation and committed all kinds of obscene acts with the sole thought of meeting So Yeon-hwa, but when he officially faced So Yeon-hwa in his memories, all those feelings seemed to disappear.

“Ha.”

Why?

Crash grew as beautifully as the imaginary Soyeonhwa I had always imagined, or perhaps even more beautifully than the imaginary Soyeonhwa, but why did I not feel the slightest attraction at that time?

As a child, the emotions that Crash felt were towards Taeeum, and now, the black cat has reached the state of flower world and has naturally melted the Taeeum that he has into those around him. Crash, who had no way of knowing, could not understand his feelings at all.

Lying face down on the floor, Crash pondered and thought about the answer, and in the end, he had no choice but to utter one word.

“First love…was it.”

Was it just like a memory, the feeling of feeling love for the first time swelling up arbitrarily?

“I loved you. So Yeon-hwa.”

The fall that concluded like that.

Like the young men who had previously been rejected by the black cat, Crash shook off his regrets.

In this way, the magical power of the lunar diaphragm disappeared from the hearts of young people and announced its end.

So Yeon-hwa’s magical character became a memory that remained in people’s hearts.

*** ***

After a long day, a small banquet was held.

It was a banquet to celebrate the rise of the black cat and the reopening of the Soga Clothing Store.

Black Cat looked at his mother, Son Mi-ok, comforting the family of the dry goods store. The family of Soga Clothing Store, who had suffered a lot because of those who targeted the black cat, were delighted with Son Mi-ok’s assurance that nothing bad would happen now.

The atmosphere at the Sogapomok branch heated up in an instant.

This was because the black cat stood among the family members of the Soga Clothing Store and mingled with them.

Now that the black cat, which had always kept its distance from them, opened its heart and approached them, the family of Sogapomok Branch could not help but be happy and excited.

The black cat also had a strong desire to be friendly with its family members, so it enjoyed conversations and banquets with its family members.

Black Cat, who had been laughing and chatting with her family for a while, came to her senses when she saw Son Mi-ok’s drunken body shaking.

“Hehe, that’s good.”

“I didn’t drink too much.”

“You should drink it on a day like today! When will you drink it?”

Heukmyo smiled bitterly at Son Mi-ok’s words. The emotions of today must be special because Son Mi-ok suffered as much as a black cat, or even more than a black cat, because of her lunar delay.

“Now, if I see them getting married for real, I won’t have any more regrets.”

“Um… I’m talking about marriage.”

I felt the alcohol that was Son Mi-ok disappear. Wasn’t my daughter the one who jumped up and covered her mouth whenever we talked about marriage?

“Can you wait a moment? Mom?”

“Is there something else that bothers you?”

“Because there are so many people, it’s complicated in one way or another.”

The image of Hyeok Kirin and Dokgo Iseol appeared in the black cat’s mind. If the black cat announces the wedding ceremony first, the position of Hyuk Kirin, a member of the royal family, will be quite awkward. Even just marrying Ho Cheon-an, a martial artist, is expected to be quite a challenge.

The same goes for the Dokgo Yi theory. The more flaws there are, the more Dokgo Yeongcheon will rush to take away more from Ho Cheonan. It is unlikely that Ho Cheon-an will be caught by Dok-go Yeong-cheon, but it is highly likely that things will become complicated.

“These are people who helped me and helped me, but I don’t want to be greedy when I clearly know that they will be in trouble…”

“I see.”

There was silence between Black Cat and Son Mi-ok for a moment. In that silence, Black Cat felt sorry for Son Mi-ok. How does it feel when your daughter, who has overcome the hardships and barely regained her normal life, decides to postpone her wedding and take an unusual path?

Contrary to Black Cat’s worries that he might disagree with her opinion, Son Mi-ok calmly gave her permission.

“I will do as I wish.”

“…Mom.”

Son Mi-ok smiled softly as she held the black cat’s hand.

“Instead, don’t make me wait too long?”

The black cat nodded vigorously.

“Of course. If my senior behaves foolishly, I will urge him by hitting him on the back!”

“Hehehe, yes. I feel reassured.”

A black cat who is happy to be understood and Son Mi-ok, whose daughter is just cute.

The two entered the living room side by side, holding hands.

One night, the excitement of the banquet had not yet subsided. Thus, the uproar surrounding the lunar delay came to an end.